Cisco IOS vs. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco IOS
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
Cisco IOS, presently in its 15th edition, is a network operating system for service providers and enterprises alike.N/A
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Score 9.3 out of 10
N/A
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a Linux distribution mainly used in commercial data centers.N/A
Pricing
Cisco IOSRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco IOSRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco IOSRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Considered Both Products
Cisco IOS
Chose Cisco IOS
We have found other Cisco software to be filled with added functionalities as compared to IOS. New NCS software has certain programmability features that are advantageous to legacy IOS software but are more complex to use for some users. Hence, we still have most areas of the …
Chose Cisco IOS
Cisco IOS is the most stable I've used, has the best TAC support, has the best knowledge base articles and white papers from Cisco, is the most intuitive, is one of the fastest, and since it's the most widely used network appliance OS, chances are that most network engineers …
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
RHEL provides more support and has a bigger community, RHEL is a more mature product and has Fedora and Centos as upstream products to help make it more stable.
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Satellite
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Rocky Linux. CentOS, Arch about every distribution of Linux. Stability and reliability are king and the support. If something happens or you just hit a bug, that's why you go to Red Hat.
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
It's superior. I mean they're all Linux so it's all that code, but I find that the intangibles that you get with Red Hat, meaning the enterprise support, the lifecycle, that's what clearly makes it better than the rest of them.
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Ubuntu ssa. Most other Linux platforms I've used. It's better in some areas. It's not as good in the sum.
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Windows 11 has more stability and great functionality compared to older windows versions, and the gap between windows and Linux has shortened. You can pick from different OS’s to build enterprise level software on nowadays. But Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is still among the …
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat OpenShift
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Direct competitor on an os level. RHEL just has a better feel and usability. I feel more comfortable with it. Both work. But RHEL is my preference
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
due to support options, long term experience and as certified os for sap
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
AlmaLinux OS and Oracle Linux
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Suse is too complicated once they trapped you into using the UI for configuration.
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Satellite
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Far better vendor experience and support compared to Oracle. Better security and update cadence compared to CentOS. Better docs with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and the ability to bring data together though Red Hat Insights is a powerful tool. This helps feed into other …
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
RHEL because of more wide adoption, stability, general knowledge on the platform and less nonsensical approach to various platform functionalities
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
I much prefer Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) over Windows. There is way more customization and flexibility, and being able to use Linux as the OS over Windows gives additional flexibility for various use cases. I prefer the intuitive use cases of Mac, but the lack of …
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
RHEL helps us provide better service to our customers and to help them to make the best decisions for their business in order to achieve better customer satisfaction in the future and in the long run to achieve better outcomes for the company in the future.
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
There isn't a big difference but they do not have the same level of support. Linux overall has come a long way
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
RHEL Enterprise support is better than Ubuntu.
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Debian OS, Ubuntu and openSUSE YaST
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
We haven't used anything comparable to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). We are a WIndows and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL )shop. We only support those two
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
Best Alternatives
Cisco IOSRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

Ubuntu
Ubuntu
Score 8.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies

No answers on this topic

Ubuntu
Ubuntu
Score 8.7 out of 10
Enterprises
Cisco NX-OS
Cisco NX-OS
Score 9.4 out of 10
Ubuntu
Ubuntu
Score 8.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco IOSRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.3
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.5
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco IOSRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Likelihood to Recommend
Well suited for building management networks across the organization as it has been reliable without much downtime. Since it has great switching qualities, it suites well for data center and end-user connectivity using access switches. It might not be the best for routing, as other XOR software has proven to be superior for routing.
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Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is well suited for cloud environments, fast deployments and to run non-intensive apps/tools (with low memory and low cpu consumption).Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) might not be suited for really huge databases and intensive CPU processing.
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Pros
  • User friendly CLI.
  • Quick fixes for critical bugs.
  • Longer uptime.
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  • Virtualization, like the operating system level task. I see this product is very good and it blends very well with the middleware components like all the JBoss and other things. And other than that, either you install it or a virtual machine or physical servers, it works seamlessly anywhere. And if you want to go further, like Red Hat OpenShift or those things also work very nice with it.
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Cons
  • By this point, there are several "flavors" of the Cisco IOS such as XE, XR, and the standard Cisco IOS. While they are all fairly similar, there does exist syntax differences between them. It would be ideal if at some point in the future, Cisco is able to unify all of them into one standard operating system which would use the same syntax across all platforms.
  • While overall Cisco does a great job of QA'ing their IOS, no matter the release, there's always some minor bugs. I think it's important that Cisco continue to pour resources into their QA team to test their software.
  • While I'm very familiar with the graphical readouts of "show processes cpu history" I would love for Cisco to eventually find a more intuitive way to display this data. I can't begin to count how many times I've had to teach more entry level (and even mid level) engineers how this graph is interpreted.
  • I do wish that Cisco had something similar to Juniper's "commit check" or "commit confirmed". This helps validate the changes you're about to apply, and catch errors, so that you have a better idea of the impact of the change.
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  • Well, one of the things, this ties right back to my previous answer from what it sounds like, the cloud platform for Insights doesn't currently have an easy way to generate CVE compliance reports, or do scans for where you have remediations required, but it does not currently produce those reports in a way that I could just hand off to our security team and be like, here's our compliance, here's where all the things are specifically because Red Hat does backporting of patches and a lot of security tools don't know how to handle that and think that we're vulnerable when we're not. So from everything I've heard, it's possible. That's why I'm excited for it. But it's not easily pushed button generated report yet. So we're working with them to get that in there.
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Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
We find RHEL to be a superior OS with stable operations and long life. It is also easier to use and fix then most other OS's.
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Usability
The data that Cisco IOS is able to provide is extremely relevant, it's fast, and it's intuitive. I also love that you're able to leverage things like macros or EEM scrips to run multiple commands at once. This is especially useful when you have more junior or entry level engineers in your environment and you want to provide them with a "shortcut" by having them type a single command to execute multiple commands.
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The Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) distro is the simplest enterprise version of Red Hat that is enterprise supported and when you deploy as many VMs as we do, it is vital to have that enterprise support. On top of the enterprise support, having access to a commercially supported backbone for updates and upgrades is a huge plus.
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Reliability and Availability
No answers on this topic
Product support and regular patches.
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Performance
No answers on this topic
As with any OS enhanced testing will need to be done prior to application integration.
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Support Rating
No answers on this topic
Red Hat support has really come a long way in the last 10 years, The general support is great, and the specialized product support teams are extremely knowledgeable about their specific products. Response time is good and you never need to escalate.
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Implementation Rating
No answers on this topic
Don't be afraid of it, its easy to install and configure for the tasks needed.
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Alternatives Considered
Cisco IOS is the most stable I've used, has the best TAC support, has the best knowledge base articles and white papers from Cisco, is the most intuitive, is one of the fastest, and since it's the most widely used network appliance OS, chances are that most network engineers you encounter will have the most familiarity with Cisco IOS than with any other vendor's OS.
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It's superior. I mean they're all Linux so it's all that code, but I find that the intangibles that you get with Red Hat, meaning the enterprise support, the lifecycle, that's what clearly makes it better than the rest of them.
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Scalability
No answers on this topic
Operational ease of use backed by support
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Return on Investment
  • Cisco IOS has had a positive impact in how quickly we're able to mitigate issues and outages due to how fast it's able to display the exact data we're looking for and because how the relevant that data is.
  • Having a stable operating system means less network issues and less outages. It goes without saying how valuable this has been for our organization.
  • Fantastic TAC support from Cisco! In the rare instances that we're faced with a very complex issue, or unfamiliar territory, Cisco TAC has historically done a phenomenal job of assisting us and getting us sorted!
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  • RHEL provides a good base OS and additional tool sets for various deployments.
  • We are able to use Satellite to manage hundreds of OS's behind our corporate firewall. No other OS provides the level that RHEL does.
  • It is a known good quantity. Their support for the OS is amazing.
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ScreenShots